


Replaced

by bendingsignpost



Series: Tumblr Fic [34]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Baby Jack Kline, Castiel and Dean Winchester Being Idiots, First Kiss, Grieving Castiel (Supernatural), Hurt Dean Winchester, Kid Fic, M/M, Mutual Pining, Protective Dean Winchester, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24257974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bendingsignpost/pseuds/bendingsignpost
Summary: In Cas' arms, he bounces the human loudspeaker that is his godson. “He won’t stop,” Cas says, his expression—and his sanity—visibly on the verge of crumbling.Dean knows the feeling.
Relationships: Castiel & Jack Kline, Castiel & Kelly Kline (Supernatural), Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Tumblr Fic [34]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/17495
Comments: 55
Kudos: 815





	Replaced

On the drive over, Dean had debated with himself whether to knock or maybe just text. When he parks, however, it’s very clear that the doorbell can’t make anything worse. He rings it, just the once, and isn’t entirely sure he heard the bell go off beneath the screaming. 

There’s an abrupt flurry of footsteps pounding down the staircase inside, the screaming carried with it. After only a brief bit of tumblers turning in their locks, there’s Cas, pale except for the dark bruises beneath his eyes, hair flat and oily where it isn’t sticking up wildly, his t-shirt stained with who knows what. In his arms, he bounces the human loudspeaker that is his godson. 

“He won’t stop,” Cas says, his expression—and his sanity—visibly on the verge of crumbling. 

Dean waves him aside, enters, slips out of his jacket, and gestures for Jack. 

Cas passes the infant over with the utmost care and absolutely shaking hands. 

“What’s up?” Dean asks the kid. “Yeah? Yeah, that sucks. That’s rough, kid.”

“Dean, _please_ ,” Cas half-begs, half-curses. 

“No, seriously, this works,” Dean says, omitting that it doesn’t always. “Go grab some water or something.”

“I just fed him his bottle half an hour ago, he-”

“For _you_ , dumbass.”

Grumbling, Cas stalks off toward the kitchen. Dean follows, flips a dish towel over his shoulder, angles the kid up, and tries the first obvious step. 

Jack belches like a fucking pro, then downgrades from screaming to crying. 

“That’s it. Thaaaat’s it,” Dean tells Jack, rocking him back and forth until the cries settle into more of grumbling hiccups. 

Something thunks on the kitchen table: Cas’ head, right beside his abandoned glass of water. 

“Cas?”

“Why didn’t I think of that.”

“Uh, ‘cause you’re a walking zombie? Seriously, when was the last time you slept.”

“The last time Jack slept,” Cas tells the plastic tablecloth. It, like everything else in Cas’ small home, has been made as washable as possible, very quickly. 

“Okay, you take a shower or something. I got this.”

Cas doesn’t budge from the table. 

“Seriously, if you fall asleep there, your back’s going to hate you.”

“It already hates me,” Cas groans. 

Dean carries Jack around the table to hip check Cas in the shoulder. “Move it.”

Cas does not move it. 

Dean hip checks him a bit harder. 

Groaning and flipping Dean off, Cas gets up. “I’ll be quick.”

“Dude, I’m not going anywhere.”

“I don’t want to bother you.” It’s a low protest, and one Dean rolls his eyes at. 

If Cas hadn’t wanted to _bother_ Dean, than maybe Cas shouldn’t have fucking hooked up with a heavily pregnant woman fleeing her stalker ex. Maybe Cas shouldn’t have up and devoted his entire goddamn life to some stranger he’d barely just met, so fucking enamored with her and a kid who hadn’t even been born yet. Maybe Cas shouldn’t have abandoned the people he’d already promised to stick by. Fucking idiot had done everything except move away. 

And Dean can’t say any of that, because what kind of asshole gets that petty over a battered dead woman? The kind of asshole Cas would be _right_ to finally ditch.

“Just go fucking shower,” Dean mutters instead. 

Cas looks back at him. Dean knows Cas does, and Dean copes with that by keeping his eyes strictly on the baby. 

Without another word, Cas trudges upstairs. Dean looks around, locates a binky on the floor, washes it off in the sink, and sticks it into Jack’s face the second the kid makes grabby hands at it.

If everything was that simple to fix, Dean’s life would be a lot less fucked up. 

For now, Dean simply deposits Jack into the high chair at the table, confirms that the kid isn’t going to flop out, and starts doing the dishes. He hears the shower turn on upstairs and steadfastly Does Not Think About anything the shower might imply. Namely, nudity and Cas, together. Because there’s being a horny piece of shit, and then there’s being a horny piece of shit while his best friend is grieving the alleged love of his fucking life. 

Bitterness pushes Dean through the dishes and into the fridge in general. What he sees basically confirms what the peanut butter and jelly clinging to the knives had attested, and this is why Dean is boiling pasta and melting cheese when Cas staggers back downstairs. 

“...What are you doing?” Cas asks. 

“Making shit for you to reheat later.”

Cas shuffles up behind Dean, and for one surreal moment, Dean is dreaming. 

Specifically, about arms around his waist. About Cas’ forehead pressed to the crook of his neck, hair still damp and aromatic with shampoo. About Cas’ hands gripping his own pajama sleeves, set against Dean’s stomach.

“Thank you,” Cas says, and Dean’s entire body is a thing of heat and shivers. 

“It’s just mac and cheese.”

“Not from a box.”

“Some of us can actually cook.”

“Yes,” Cas says, face still against Dean’s shoulder. He holds on, leans on Dean, as if Dean’s the only thing keeping him up. 

Which, actually, yeah. Dean is. 

“Go to bed, dude,” Dean tells him. “Promise he’ll still be alive when you wake up.”

Cas tenses. 

Dean closes his eyes and mentally hits himself as hard as he can. 

“I mean,” Dean tries to say. 

“That’s what all my nightmares are about,” Cas says, still hugging Dean around the middle. “Except for the ones where his father finds us.”

“Kelly gave you full custody, right? If anything happened to her?”

“I don’t know what will happen.”

“She had a restraining order against him, right?”

Cas grunts. “Getting that was difficult enough.”

Dean keeps stirring the cheese sauce. 

Cas lets him go. Shuffles away to sit down at the table with a groan. Starts talking to the baby with exhausted fondness. 

Dean drains water from the mac and adds the cheese. Slaps down a bowl with a fork in front of Cas, then passes him the pepper before the guy can open his mouth. 

“Thank you,” Cas says, and it’s gotta be the crushing fatigue that makes him look like he’s about to cry. 

“Eat,” Dean orders, way more testily than he wants to be. He goes back to the stove and dumps the remainder from saucepan to tupperware. Keeps the lid off, lets the steam out, has it sit on the counter while Dean washes both saucepans. He digs through Cas’ fridge and pantry, and there’s not a lot of good options for reheatable meals. 

“I’ll bring some stuff over tomorrow,” Dean says, closing the freezer door. “Fast stuff that actually counts as food.”

“You don’t have to,” Cas says, and not in the way that foretells polite acceptance of a favor. 

“Yeah, I know, but _I’m_ not going to abandon you.”

Cas looks up from the table. His spine straightens the most Dean’s seen it since, well. Since before Jack was born. 

“Kelly didn’t _abandon_ us,” Cas says icily. _Us_ , he says, and he doesn’t mean the old _us_ , the Cas-and-Dean _us_. “She died, Dean. That is not her fault.”

“Not what I meant,” Dean says, because if Cas is going to stab him, Dean’s going to stab back. 

Very slightly, Cas’ eyes widen, then narrow. 

“She needed me, Dean,” Cas says. “You didn’t.”

“Do you want the damn groceries tomorrow or not?” Dean demands. 

“Yes.”

“Fine.”

“ _Fine_.”

Jack starts crying. 

Cas rolls his eyes heavenward before doing his pitiful best to get the kid to stop. 

Dean stands back and watches until the noise gets too annoying. And then, because he’s a glutton for punishment, he doesn’t leave. He doesn’t brush this off as his due diligence and head for the door. 

He tromps over, scoops the kid up, and puts on the happy fucking face he’s been pulling around Cas for months now until the kid is all giggles and rainbows again. Whether he recognizes Dean from any of his previous visits is up in the air, but he doesn’t freak out from stranger danger, so it could be a lot worse. 

“You gotta take a nap, kid. You’re making your dad grumpy.”

“I’m not his father,” Cas says, which wow, good thing Jack doesn’t have object permanence yet. Or word skills. 

“He’s your girlfriend’s baby. Of course you’re his dad.”

Cas stares up at him from the kitchen table. 

“What?” Dean says, bouncing the kid against his shoulder. 

“Kelly wasn’t my girlfriend,” Cas says. 

Dean stares back. Coughs. “Okay, your, uh, paramour or shit.”

“Dean,” Cas says. 

“Yeah,” Dean says. 

“We weren’t romantically involved,” Cas says.

Dean blinks. “Seriously?”

Cas nods. 

Dean blinks some more. 

Looks at the situation in a new light. 

And promptly endures the rest of his heart snapping in half. 

“Okay,” Dean says. “Sure. Your new best friend.”

“Dean,” Cas says, and he sounds so incredibly exhausted that Dean almost wants to go easy on him. 

Dean doesn’t want to. 

He does anyway.

“No, fine, whatever.” He shrugs and turns away, heading out of the kitchen and to the stairs. “I’m gonna try to put him down for a nap.” 

With a groan and a scrape of the chair, Cas gets up. Follows. All the way up the stairs, his hand audibly sliding along the railing with each step. 

Dean heads into the room that was once Cas’ office, and now Jack’s nursery. There’s a lot of crap in here, everything Kelly had prepared and never gotten to use. Laying Jack down in that crib and flipping the mobile on, it’s all stuff that should’ve been Kelly’s, and Dean just feels like shit, having that when she doesn’t, even after she stole Cas. 

Jack’s attention is immediately snagged by the spinning mobile, so it’s a different stare that Dean feels on him. Dean stays where he is, refusing to turn around to the sound of Cas continuing to eat mac n’ cheese in pajamas.

Finally, there’s the light tap of a plastic bowl set against the top of a bookshelf. 

“You should go to bed,” Dean warns as Cas comes up toward him. “Sleep while you can.” 

Cas pulls the baby monitors out of their charging stand on the desk. He turns on both before clipping one to the side of Jack’s crib. 

Dean takes the second monitor out of Cas’ hand. Tries to. It ends up as a mutual hold, not quite a tug-of-war. 

“I got this,” Dean says. 

“I want to talk to you.”

“Tough.”

Eyes hard, Cas grabs him by the wrist. “I _need_ to talk to you.” For all the steel in Cas’ eyes, the stone of his face is crumbling. 

Dean breaks before Cas can. “Okay, okay. Fine.”

Cas doesn’t let go, dragging Dean across the stairway landing of a hall and into his bedroom. It’s a mess, the kind that order falls into when there’s more pressure than time, and it’s surreal to see even just the bed unmade. 

Cas sits on that unmade bed, and he pulls Dean down to sit next to him. 

“Okay,” Dean says yet again. “What’s so important?”

And Cas looks at him. Really _looks_ at him, in that way Cas has, in that way only Cas has. But this way is a new way, because this one is close to tears.

“I need words, buddy.”

Mouth a crumpled line, Cas reaches out. Grabs Dean by the far shoulder. 

Dean turns accordingly, but Cas still doesn’t release him. “Cas, you’re kinda freaking me out here.”

Cas leans forward. 

Kisses him. 

Kisses Dean. 

On the mouth. 

Cas kisses Dean on the mouth. 

And tastes of mac n’ cheese and tears. 

Dean pulls back. 

Cas wipes his face with the heel of his hand. “Apologies. I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t have done that, I’m...”

Hands shaking, Dean pulls Cas in. Shifts on the bed, kneels up on the bed, the better to get Cas to lean against him. 

Face buried against Dean’s shoulder, Cas cries and cries, worse than Dean has ever seen him. 

Blinking away reciprocal tears, Dean rubs his back. Touches Cas more than he’s been able to for months, more than he’s been permitted to for years in the casual brushes of friendship. 

Cas doesn’t so much stop crying as run out of tears. Dean keeps rubbing his back. 

“I’m sorry,” Cas says against Dean’s shoulder, so much urgency and stiffness in his exhausted frame. “Please don’t- I can’t lose you too.”

Throat working, Dean can’t do much more than pat Cas on the back while pulling back to grab some tissues off the bedside table. He sticks those in front of Cas’ face. Cas takes them. Pulls back, faces away, and uses them. 

Dean stays put. 

Clears his throat. 

“You got a lot of shit going on,” Dean says. “Tired. Not thinking right.”

Cas buries his face in his hands. 

“A lot of people fuck after funerals, it’s not that weird,” Dean continues. “So... yeah. A couple months late on the timing, but. Not that weird.”

Face still hidden, Cas silently shakes his head.

“I’m, uh. Gonna clean up some more. With the baby monitor. You, um. You sleep. Okay?”

Cas doesn’t say anything. 

Gingerly, Dean squeezes his shoulder. Stands up. 

He makes it all the way to the door before looking back. 

“I need you, Dean,” Cas says, his red eyes still ringed so darkly with shadows. 

“That’s why I’m here,” Dean says, Dean promises, and he shuts the bedroom door behind him on his way out. 

**Author's Note:**

> anonymous asked:  
> In the bedroom and sad :'(
> 
> As always, to see what else I'm working on, you can follow me on [tumblr here](http://bendingsignpost.tumblr.com/).


End file.
